Damn! Damn damn damn... :(

We were so bloody close. :(

I'll just post my fresh comments I've just made on AussieTorrents.

Romania 18 - 24 Italy

First half
Muddy game until now (end of 1st half). Romanians started by making some pretty stupid handling mistakes in defense. One of them was turned by Italians into an unconverted try. Then the Italians had a penalty kick: 8 - 0.

But then the game slowly started to balance. The boot of the Italian halfback started to wander and they missed 3 points. The Romanians advanced to the center. They also missed 3 points from a fairly central place (stiupiiid Dumitrash ). Then the handling errors started to besiege both teams. The Italians looked like having lead in their boots. It seems the Jerry Collins and Ritchie McCaw tackles are taking their toll

The Romanians had two closely missed opportunities to come close by try.

Now it's halftime break. I'll return after the game. Muddy game, slow balls, clumsy playing. The Romanians are not brilliant, but neither the Italians.

Second half
Damn! :(

We could have beaten them.

A different second half. Both teams played better. They've finally decided to change their scorers / kickers and it showed: more points from free kicks - both teams.

But the real difference proved to be in the 1st 10 minutes, when the Romanians managed to score twice. Two tries, one from a rolling maul well handled (the try needed the video referee), a second one from a great forward pressure and nice team effort. Tincu, our hooker, scored brilliantly. In fact, Tincu I think was the best player of the Romanian team and, perhaps, of the whole game.

But then the Italians were all over us and we saw a yellow card - some doubtful penalty for a line-out infringement. Meanwhile, Tincu was blood binned (I feel tempted to revive the conspiracy theory - nope. I won't) and we suddenly were in 7 forwards (a flanker was sin binned) and with our hooker Tincu blood binned. The scrum was unbalanced, the Romanians couldn't hold it and the Italians were finally awarded a penalty try.

Then the Romanians managed somehow to hold the line and we had our flanker back. Then the Romanians flared in good Latin spirit and managed to receive two penalty kicks for talking / contesting the referee decisions. Here goes 6 points - exactly the difference the Italians won.

Finally the score was 24 - 18, with the last minutes seeing the Romanians in attack, but to no avail.

The bad thing is that we lost. The good thing is that the team showed some great fighting spirit and that we were close to winning. Moreover, the whole stadium was behind us, cheering the Romanian efforts and booing the referee. I think he took several doubtful decisions - but who am I to judge him.

Damn again. We could have won. :(